Urban Wild Ecology traces how two Japanese designers, working in the aftermath of 2011, began reimagining everyday life beyond dependence on infrastructure — turning to solar homes, microbial gardens, vacant buildings, and discarded materials as the basis for a new way of living.
About This Book
In the wake of the catastrophic events of 2011 in Japan, Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama turned their attention to the materials and energy flows that structure daily existence — household goods, food, homes, waste — and asked what a genuinely different relationship to those systems might look like. The result is a document of off-grid living, collective habitation, and ecological improvisation: solar-powered homes, soil microbe gardens, shared occupation of vacant buildings, construction from discarded materials. The wildness the title invokes is not romantic; it is adaptive, tolerant of fluctuation, capable of thriving outside the certainties of industrial supply. The book introduces the collectives practising these approaches, alongside their methods and resources — a practical and philosophical provocation for designers thinking about sustainable architecture and alternative dwelling.
Key Features
- 204 pages of documentary photography, collective profiles, and practice-based research into alternative living systems
- Authors: Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama
- Published by TOTO Publishing, 2011
What You'll Discover
- How off-grid solar homes and microbial soil gardens function as design responses to infrastructure dependency
- The spatial and social logics of shared habitation in vacant urban buildings
- Construction methods built around discarded and salvaged materials, explored through real collectives and their practices
- A conceptual framework in which urban wildness — defined by fluctuation and tolerance of inconvenience — becomes a model for resilient, post-industrial dwelling
About the Author
Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama are designers whose work examines the relationship between materials, energy, and everyday life. Following 2011, they directed their research toward alternative domestic systems and the communities building them, documented in this collaborative publication.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 204
- Dimensions: 19 x 27 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9784887064072
- Publisher: TOTO Publishing
- Publication Date: 2011
Perfect For: Architects and designers engaged with sustainable housing, researchers in ecological urbanism, and practitioners exploring off-grid and collective living as serious design propositions.